"Aaron's Benediction" - Henry Knapp

 “Bless You!”

Sneezing is a rather common part of life—studies show that on average people sneeze about four times per day (Why someone would be studying this is beyond me…). Happening as frequently as it does, it’s no surprise that there are traditions built up around a sneeze. Often, you will hear someone respond to a sneeze with the words, “Bless you,” short for the prayer, “May God bless you.”

The reason for such a blessing following a sneeze is not known for sure, but there are suggestions. One option is that the sneeze is thought to push your soul momentarily outside your body, and the prayer is a request that God guard your soul against Satan until it can return to the body. Another possibility from medieval times (when one sign of bubonic plague infection was a sneezing fit), is that the church encouraged this prayer for others anytime a sneeze happened, fearing that death from the plague was imminent.

Whatever the origin, “bless you” is a concise, yet powerful, prayer. In that short phrase, we are asking that the Lord would… what? What are we actually asking for when we ask God to “bless” someone? I suspect we all have a general sense of what we are asking for—good things, kindness, mercy, and so forth. Of course, we get that general sense from the Scripture itself. It is God who announces His intention to bless. Indeed, blessing God’s people is an important part of our worship together.

“Benediction” is Latin for “good word” or “good speaking.” When the pastor speaks a benediction, he is blessing the congregation with a final “good word”: a good word intended to wrap up all that has been happening during the worship service, and a good word which should spur us on to godliness, service, and adoration throughout the week. The benediction of a Hebron worship service is sometimes a summary statement of the Scripture, sometimes a charge and/or encouragement, sometimes a passage from the Bible.

The classic benediction in Scripture is in Numbers 6:22-27 where Moses is explicitly commanded by God to bless God’s people with words you might be familiar with: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord life up His countenance upon you and give you peace.” The essence of this benediction is the announcement of God’s blessing, His grace and peace—all wrapped up with the promise of His very Presence with His people.

A benediction is intended to bless, and so this week in worship we will give a “benediction” to this past year and look forward to the one coming. For many of us, thinking of the past year in terms of blessing will not be very easy—it certainly has been a challenge! But, as we attend to the Word in Scripture, we will, I trust, hear God’s blessings and be able to carry them into the future.

Join us for worship this Sunday as we explore a marvelous Scriptural benediction, Numbers 6:22-27.

1. In verse 22, God directs Moses to bless the people. But the blessing is a request that God Himself do something. Why do you think God desires Moses to verbally say something to the Israelites, instead of God just doing it?

2. Notice that it seems like the blessing itself is in hearing the words. In other words, Moses and Aaron bless the people by saying the blessing to them. Why would hearing the words be a blessings?

3. List out the three couplets in the blessing. There are six elements here, grouped together in three lines. What holds the couplets together? Why join each pair together?

4. What does it mean to ask the Lord to “keep you” (vs. 24)?

5. To “lift up your countenance” means to look upon someone with favor. What would it look like if the Lord “looked on you with favor”?

6. In verse 27, God explains that by giving the benediction, Moses and Aaron will “put God’s name upon them.” What does it mean to have God’s name upon you? Why would this be a blessings?

"All Is Grace" - Doug Rehberg

A budding 5^th grade clarinetist eventually asked her band director, “What’s that tiny little note before the big note in the fifth measure? I don’t get it.” That’s when the director explained what a grace note is.

A grace note on a musical score is ornamentation. It doesn’t have to be; yet it is. Its note value doesn’t even count as part of the total time value of a measure. Such a timing oddity can fluster even the best young orchestral student. Welcome to the world of grace!

Grace is a large word with only five letters that precedes every goodness we know. Grace is always previous. It always comes before.

When the Apostle Paul begins his letters to several young churches he makes certain that they hear the word grace before they even get to read the words of mercy and peace.

The Hebrew people got the ordering of grace straight. Life for them began not at sunrise, but at sunset. “There was evening and (then) there was morning,” the first, second, and every day. When we finally shut down our busy lives enough to fall asleep, that’s when God does much of His best work.

As Eugene Peterson used to say, “We wake into a world we didn’t make, and into a salvation we didn’t earn." Grace is underway before we even reach the cornflakes. And we’ve seen that time and time again in our 47-week study of Genesis and over 31 years together!

It might be nice if Jesus had given us a plain definition of grace, but He never used the word. For Him, grace was ever-present. It was something to be appreciated and lived, not just talked about. That’s why John speaks of the incarnation the way he does…”For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth come through Jesus.”

So when grace shows up on our doorstep in odd-shaped packages, it often takes us by surprise. It offers us help we never counted on and love we never deserved. Even if it doesn’t supply us with what we want, we come to realize that it provides us with what we need. No wonder Jesus avoided trying to plastic wrap the rich reality of grace in a single word.

Of all the major religions in the world, only Christianity proposes that God’s love is truly unconditional. No strings attached. No conditions laid down. No qualifications required. Other faiths have their own “earned approval strategies” to which Christians instinctively feel drawn. Maybe we’re eager to believe that we deserve what we have. Whatever our flesh tells us, grace is never anything a person can “get.” It is only a treasure that one can receive. No wonder the grace-filled friends in our lives feel like undeserved gifts.

In a memorable “Dennis the Menace” cartoon, Dennis and his friend, Joey, are leaving Mrs. Wilson’s house loaded with a plateful of cookies when Joey turns to Dennis and says, “I wonder what we did to deserve them?” Dennis is quick to reply, “Look Joey, Mrs. Wilson gives us cookies not because we’re nice, but because she is.”

So goes the arithmetic of God. He doesn’t love Jacob because he’s a cheat or David because he’s an adulterer. God, in His infinite love, loved Jacob because he was Jacob, and David because he was David. The same goes for Esau and Saul. The gospel has nothing to do with our goodness, except as some kind of by-product. It is not interested in our charm or brilliance. No, the gospel demands us to remove ourselves from the center of attention and to remember that grace always arrives as a gift from someone well outside of us. As a friend of mine says, “Grace always flows downhill.”

Clear-thinking Christians love to underscore the priority of grace for it is the center core of the gospel that can never be fully plumbed. We don’t sight-read music full of grace notes better than anyone else. It’s just that when we read the Bible and encounter the incarnate God, we find out that we’re in much worse shape than we thought we were, and we are far more loved than we ever dreamed. And it’s to this truth that I wish to speak this Christmas Sunday – my last Sunday at Hebron.

In preparation for a message entitled “All Is Grace,” you may wish to consider the following:

1. If you know Tim Williams, do you remember his first sermon at Hebron in 1996?
2. Do you remember how he came to preach at Hebron?
3. What do you make of the context of Exodus 20:22-26?
4. What is the Lord instructing His people and why?
5. How important is the charge against Jesus in Luke 15:2 that He eats with sinners?
6. What is the significance of His eating with them?
7. What do the words, “And he came to himself” mean in Luke 15:17?
8. Why is this story called the greatest story in Scripture?
9. What’s at the heart of the older brother’s anger?
10. What’s at the heart of his father’s response to it?

See you Sunday!

"The Incarnation on Display" - Henry Knapp

I read J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy back in the 1970s as a young teenager. If you have read the books, you know that they are justly famous for the breadth and scope of the imaginary world Tolkien created. Trolls, orcs, goblins, wizards, and, of course, hobbits. The books are long and involved, so if you keep with it, you really get to know the main characters—Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee. Not only would I be reading of their exploits, I also was picturing them, imagining exactly what the world looked like, the monsters and the heroes.

For decades, I had a vision of what hobbits looked like, what the mythical landscape was like, how wizards appeared. In my mind, I had envisioned exactly what everything looked like. And then I saw the movies. Within minutes, I had forgotten the images I had created in my mind, and suddenly saw things as the movie director wanted me to. Hobbits were no longer as I envisioned them, but as I saw them portrayed on screen. And, once I saw the visual picture, I couldn’t even remember how I had originally imagined things to be.

This Advent season, we are looking at different ways to understand the incarnation—the biblical description of how God took on humanity. In the incarnation, the Son of God somehow became a man; the infinite, all-powerful, sovereign of the universe, is a tiny, weak, needy baby. The very idea should amaze and astound us. But sometimes, it’s hard to picture exactly what the incarnation means.

And so, it is a blessing that God grants us so much material in the Gospels to “see” Jesus as fully God and fully human. Since Jesus is fully human, just like us but without sin, we should see Jesus doing human-like things. Since Jesus is fully God, identical with the Father, we should see Him doing God-like things. For His humanity, we are told of Jesus’ birth, being asleep on the boat, walking long distances, and, of course, dying on the cross. For His divinity, we see Jesus walking on the water, commanding evil spirits, changing water to wine, raising the dead.

There are, however, some events in Jesus’ life which show both His divinity and His humanity. While asking the Samaritan woman for a drink, a very human need, Jesus clearly displays supernatural knowledge of her life (John 4). As a growing young boy, Jesus amazed the Temple leaders with His understanding (Luke 2).

This week we will work our way through just such a passage: the calling of the first disciples (Luke 5). We’ll see His humanity. We’ll see His divinity. When Jesus enters our lives, He comes, not just as a man, not just as our God, but as the Incarnate One, the God-man. This is Who we worship, this is Who we follow.

In preparation for worship this Sunday, read Luke 5:1-11.

1. What characteristics of being human are evident in Jesus’ actions in these verses? What does He do that shows Himself to be a human being?

2. What characteristics of being divine are evident in Jesus’ actions in these verses? What does He do that shows Himself to be God?

3. What is Simon (Peter) doing while washing his nets? What is he hearing?

4. Why does Simon let down the nets? What motivates him to do this?

5. After the catch of fish, how do you know Simon’s attitude toward Jesus changes?

6. How do you explain Simon’s response to Jesus in verse 8? Why does he want Jesus to “depart?”

7. What all is implied in Jesus’ words to Simon, both parts?

"The 5 'P's of Presence" - Doug Rehberg

I have only two more sermons to preach at Hebron, and this is the first. It makes me remember a story.

It’s one of those stories you never learn in school: but if you had, you’d probably remember it. Thomas Jefferson is making his way across Virginia on horseback with a group of men when they come to a river that has overflowed its banks. The water level is so high that it has washed out the bridge, leaving each rider to cross the river on horseback. After several have plunged in and are making their way to the other side, a stranger asks Jefferson if he’d ferry him across on his horse. Without hesitation, Jefferson agrees, the man climbs up, and before long they are safely on the other side. When the stranger slides to the ground, one of the men asks him, “Why did you select the President to do that favor?” The man is in shock. He has no idea he has just asked the President for a ride. All he can say is, “When I looked at every other face, all I could see was, ‘No;’ but when I looked at his, all I could see was, ‘Yes.’”

For the last 10 years of his life Henri Nouwen of Harvard University left academia and went to Ontario, Canada, to take care of nursing home patients. He writes about it, “When we honestly ask ourselves which person means the most to us, we often find it’s those who, instead of giving advice…have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in a moment of grief and bereavement…and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that’s a friend who cares.”

C.S. Lewis once said, “Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’”

Have you ever thought of Jesus in terms of friendship? Unlike every other rabbi of His day, Jesus chooses His disciples, they don’t choose Him. Unlike every other rabbi, His teaching is not the focus of their discipleship, but Himself. When Jesus says, “I no longer call you servants, but friends,” His deviation from every other rabbi is complete. For the Jews knew nothing of friendship. When Jesus calls His disciples ‘friends,’ He’s using a concept that is fundamentally foreign to the Hebrew world. The closest the Jews got to friendship was saying that a man’s best friend is himself. But Jesus takes a Greek word that has its roots in the human kiss, and He applies it to His disciples. He says, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down his life for his friends. And you are my friends.” Think of it. Jesus laid down His life for His friends twice – the incarnation and the crucifixion! And we see Him doing that throughout His ministry, especially in Luke 19.

Throughout my ministry I have, every once in a while, heard someone say, “You’re not just my pastor, you are my friend.” There’s no greater compliment, for that is exactly what Jesus is.

This Sunday, the second Sunday of Advent, we will again be looking at the story of Zacchaeus. Unlike the other times, we will be looking at how Jesus is a perfect example to us of what He’s called his church to be – a crucible of friendship, an illustration of incarnational ministry. For us there’s another reinforcement for what we see in the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus. Our very name is a reminder of what God has called us to be. He’s called us to be a refuge – a place where all are welcome and free to experience the life-giving presence of Jesus Christ. Luke understood that. That’s why, on the way to the cross, He tells us the story of Zacchaeus. What a perfect picture of what the incarnation means for Jesus and for us. I hope you will join us.

In preparation for the message entitled, “The 5 ‘P’s of Presence,” you may wish to consider the following:

Read Luke 19:1-10.

1. Why do you think Luke is the only Gospel writer to tell us this story?

2. In what way is Zacchaeus unique in the Gospels?

3. How many individuals are described as rich in the Gospels?

4. What is so surprising about the setting of this story?

5. What did Joshua have to say about Jericho in Joshua 6?

6. What’s the meaning of Zacchaeus’ name?

7. Why does Jesus initiate this encounter?

8. What’s the meaning in verse 5 when He calls Zacchaeus out of the tree?

9. What does Jesus do once He enters Zacchaeus’ house?

10. How is this an exact model of what Spirit-led ministry looks like?

See you Sunday!

"The Marvel of the Incarnation" - Henry Knapp

The Incarnation of Jesus

Advent is upon us! A time of anticipation, eagerly awaiting the Savior’s birth. For four weeks leading up to Christmas, we will be celebrating advent, celebrating a period of suspense, a time devoted to ramping up our expectations for the coming of our Lord.

But what really are we awaiting? All this eager anticipation… for what? For many, this season is pure chaos—running from shop to shop, unrealistic family expectations, a busyness that undercuts whatever joy might be present. It is sometimes very hard to connect this season with something “spiritual.”

Advent is a time of waiting… for the fulfillment of God’s promises, for the salvation the Old Testament describes, for the frustration of sin to be removed. Advent is waiting… waiting for God.

This is why we often speak of the Christmas miracle as “God coming down to earth.” In order to fulfill His plan of salvation, God left His sinless heaven and came to our broken earth, where sin dominates our lives. As a ministry principle, this is a marvelous insight. We are in need, desperate in our sin, and God came to us in our inability to get to Him. This ministry insight is something we should follow in our own outreach to others—‘reaching out’ often means ‘going out’ to where those in need are.

But, there is more to the Christmas miracle than just the amazing movement of God coming to earth. Part of the beauty of Christmas is how He determined to do that. God did not come down in His divine glory; He did not appear in power and majesty. We are not overwhelmed by deity, by all the “God-ish-ness.” Instead, the Christmas miracle includes the miracle of the incarnation.

“Incarnation,” in its technical sense, is the process whereby the divine is en-fleshed, where the deity is wrapped in humanity, where God becomes man. Incarnation thus is something that only God can do—take on the human nature. You can’t have the incarnation without the divine; Jesus is the incarnate God, the Divine One. You also can’t have the incarnation without humanity; Jesus is God-made-flesh, the God-man.

And, think of all that entails! The infinite God, wrapped in finite humanity. The omnipresent Lord of the universe, limited in one place. The all-knowing Sovereign, susceptible as all humanity and growing in knowledge. The Creator of all things becomes the creation. Reality beyond our understanding or grasp. That is the miracle of the incarnation.

Advent: awaiting Christmas. Christmas: the celebration of the birth of Christ. The Birth of Christ: God has come to earth! And even more amazing, God has come to earth as a human being. Over this Advent season, we will see the importance of recognizing Christmas as the miracle of the incarnation. With Scripture our guide, we will see why it is such a celebration that God became Man, and all that means for our salvation, for the life of the Church, and for the glory of God.

For this week, Read Hebrews 2:14-18.

1. In verse 14, the author links Jesus’ humanity with the fact that we have “flesh and blood.” Can you recap his argument here? Why should Jesus be human according to verse 14?

2. “The children” in verse 14 is a reference to the quotations in verses 12-13. What are the author’s reasons for including these quotations?

3. The devil is said to “have the power of death.” In what ways does Satan hold the power of death?

4. Verse 15 describes all humanity as fearing death and being subject to slavery. If all humanity is in mind here, what “slavery” is intended?

5. Why does the author bring up “angels” in verse 16? Jesus took on human nature because He was saving humans. If He was saving angels, what nature would He have taken on?

6. In verse 17, Jesus was made like us “in every respect.” What “respect” or “aspect” of humanity would Jesus need to have taken up? Why according to the author must this happen?

7. What is the predominate reason we can trust in the caring hand of God in verse 18? How does this comfort you? Or, how SHOULD this comfort us?

"Prone to Forget" - Doug Rehberg

Scott Bolzan was in the middle of his usual morning routing as the CEO of a jet management company called Legendary Jets. On his way to get coffee, he stopped in the men’s room, and slipped on a puddle of what he thinks was cleaning oil. He says, “All I remember is my feet going above my head. That’s the last actual memory that I can recall.”

Bolzan awoke in the hospital. “He kept repeating what had happened, saying, ‘It was oily, it was slippery, I couldn’t get up,’” says his wife of 26 years. Scott said that a beautiful woman was standing over him. “I didn’t know who anybody was, all I know was that she was different.” Only later did he learn that she was his wife. “She came up to me and gave me a hug and a kiss, but I had no idea who this person was.”

Bolzan had suffered a blow to the back of his head and was treated for a severe concussion. After three days in the hospital, he was released and sent home. The doctors told him that he would be a little fuzzy, but would recover within a week.

Scott remembered the disorientation that followed the fall. “On the way home, it was, again, anxiety,” he said. “I’m like, ‘where am I going, what is this going to bring me now? Where do I live, what do I do?’ And then we walk in this house and I’m like, ‘OK, where do I go?’” On the outside he seemed fine. But what Bolzan didn’t tell anyone was that everything seemed foreign. He had no recollection of anything. Not his wife, not his children, not a single thing in their house. “Nothing looked familiar, not one thing,” said Bolzan. “You know, I’m sure I showered in that bathroom a thousand times, but nothing looked familiar… I started opening drawers and I went into my closets… I just started looking at things, but nothing looked familiar, but it looked like it would fit me so then I started rationalizing things: ok, maybe I did live here, maybe this is my house.”

But even more disturbing was that he had no clue who he was. “It was just a lost feeling of not knowing where I am in this world and who I am,” said Bolzan. It was later discovered that the fall had caused no blood flow to the temporal lobe, the part of the brain that stores memory.

When you come to the first chapter of Exodus you read a statement that smacks of Scott Bolzan and his accident. The Bible says, “Now there arose a king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” At first glance you say, “Of course he didn’t know Joseph, it’s 400 years later. Four hundred years have elapsed between Joseph’s salvation of Egypt and this new Pharaoh.” And while that may be true for 21^st century Americans who can’t remember many lessons of the past, especially when it comes to authoritarian government overreach, nothing about the Ancient Near East mirrors modern-day American amnesia.

When the Bible says that the new Pharaoh did not know Joseph, it means that he forgot the entire history of his nation. Remember that the Egyptians build pyramids for precisely that reason – to remember their past. But this Pharaoh forgot.

Think of it. He forgot the seven-year famine. He forgot the meteoric rise of that Hebrew servant and ex-con who single-handedly saved the nation from starvation. In a culture that prided itself on remembering, he forgot.

It’s hard to imagine until you examine your own Christian life and you see how frequently we forget our Joseph. It’s as if the Bible anticipates the extent of our common amnesia by ending the Book of Genesis the way it does. What we have in chapter 50 is a complete portrait of who Jesus is and what He’s done. The resemblance is uncanny. No wonder every New Testament writer finds Genesis their primary source of explaining the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus is all over the Book of Genesis, particularly in Genesis 50 and our final glimpse of Joseph.

We will wrap up our 47-week study of Genesis this week with a message entitled, “Prone to Forget.” The text is Genesis 50: 1-6, 12-26. In preparation you may wish to consider the following:

1. Why does the Bible repeatedly warn us about the importance of remembering?

2. Where do you see Jesus in Genesis 50?

3. What does verse 24 say about Joseph’s view of the future?

4. How shocking is this statement in light of his audience?

5. What one sentence does the writer of Hebrews use in describing Joseph?

6. Why does the writer consider these words rather than what Joseph says in verse 20?

7. Do you think that Joseph’s brothers are accurately representing what their father said before he died?

8. What does verse 25 tell us about Joseph and Jesus?

9. What one attribute of Joseph do you think is the most comprehensive when you consider his life, particularly in this final chapter?

See you Sunday!

"The Father Speaks" - Henry Knapp

Prophecy or Character Assessment?

Growing up, a lot of adults in my life made predictions on what kind of a future was in store. “Henry, you will be very unhappy acting that way;” “You’re gonna be a mess;” “You will do great with this!” “You’re going to have a hard time here;” “You will be sorry!” “You will never…” (Fill in the blank). 

Now, it is safe to say that none of these prognosticators were necessarily trying to be divine prophets. Most of these comments were not directed to me as predictions of what God was going to do in and through me—they were basically just guesses based on my personality and character traits. When someone suggested that I’d be in trouble that was largely based on my struggles with authority. When they said I would be successful in life that was primarily talking about my work ethic or my family background or the like. I don’t think anyone ever actually spoke a “prophecy,” as in a biblical-style prophecy, about me. 

Sometimes a prediction about the future is just an educated guess based on the kind of character that is present. But, sometimes in the Bible, a prediction is not a guess, but a statement of fact… from God Himself. 

In Genesis 49, Jacob calls his children together to “tell them what shall happen to them in the days to come” (vs. 1). And so we have our first “interpretive question”—is Jacob just anticipating how his sons’ futures will work out based on his knowledge of who they are? Or, is Jacob speaking definitively based on God’s revelation to him? Of course, the difference here is huge! When we read these verses, are we looking at Jacob’s best guess about what is in store for his sons, or is Jacob the vehicle whereby God gives us insight into the future? In the one case, we read and wonder how well Jacob knew his kids, and if their lives worked out as he guessed they would? In the other case, we are reminded that the future is in God’s hands. 

With some of the sons, it is easy to think that Jacob is just extrapolating from their pasts into their future. Take Simeon and Levi for example. These two are hotheads and prone to violence. It is no wonder that Jacob predicts a poor end for them. Naturally, we say, they are trouble and will get trouble. Issachar seems to relish the comforts of life, even at the expense of freedom. So, it would be easy to think that Jacob here is just anticipating how his sons’ lives will play out. 

But, the true character of these verses comes clearer when we look carefully at Jacob’s words to his fourth son, Judah. So far in Genesis, Judah has come across as a mixed bag: he led the brothers in selling Joseph into slavery and deceiving Jacob (Genesis 37), his treatment of his daughter-in-law is reprehensible (Genesis 38), yet his willingness to substitute his own freedom for his youngest brothers, Benjamin, is nothing short of spectacular (Genesis 44). But nothing in his past would explain the blessing Judah receives from his father (Genesis 49:8-12). Suddenly, from an obscure and dubious beginning, Judah is propelled into the limelight, and not as a strong supporting figure, but as the dominant leader, the savior. According to Jacob, Judah’s future is royalty, power, authority, victory. 

Now, you might be tempted to think this is just Jacob responding to Judah’s most recent actions in protecting Benjamin. Perhaps Jacob is just honoring Judah’s latest character, but how does one explain Jacob’s choice of words to Judah—“your brothers’ shall bow down before you” (vs. 8)? While Joseph was still living, still carrying the family, still the second most powerful man in Egypt, would Jacob have said this to Judah, naming him as the powerful son? I don’t think so! 

What we have here is pure and simply divine prophecy. Jacob is acting as God’s mouthpiece, telling His people of His work in their lives. And, when we read this, we are not reading the random thoughts of an old man speaking of his children, but the very Words of God, intended to drive us to Jesus Christ. 

How does this prophecy take us to Jesus? Come to worship on Sunday, and we’ll explore that question together! 

Read Genesis 49. 

1. Jacob is 147 years old when he makes this speech to his sons. About how old might his sons be? Assuming they themselves are kind of old, how can we understand Jacob’s words to them that he is predicting “what shall happen to you in days to come?” 

2. Technically, in “days to come” (vs. 1), all these sons lived and died in Egypt. Did God break His promises to these men? 

3. What is the emotional tenor of Jacob’s words to Reuben, his firstborn (vs. 3-4)? What words does Jacob use here that betray his emotional feelings toward Reuben? Note: Remember that Reuben had earlier slept with one of Jacob’s wives (Genesis 35:22). 

4. The prophecy to Judah is as long as Jacob’s words to Joseph, even though clearly Joseph is his father’s favorite son. What might that tell you about Judah? 

5. List out the images Jacob uses in his blessing to Judah. What is important behind each one? Can you anticipate what each is meant to convey? How might you see these qualities reflected in Jesus? And, in Jesus’ work in your life? 

6. Most scholars believe that Jacob’s blessing to Dan (vs. 16-17) is fulfilled in Dan’s great descendant, Samson. What connection might be seen here? 

7. Jacob can’t keep himself from praise (vs. 18)—“I wait for your salvation, O LORD!” What might be prompting him to say this? 

8. Joseph’s blessing is long and clearly captures both Joseph’s life and the future of his people. What future for the people of Israel is pictured here? How might all these predictions speak to us of God’s providence and control over our lives?

"The Blessings of Israel" - Doug Rehberg

The man writes, “No work that is known to us from the Ancient Near East is remotely comparable in scope or in quality with the Book of Genesis. Certain Babylonian epics tell of creation, others tell of a flood, but when they end, Genesis has barely begun. In their epics the waters are the beginning, and the gods who overcome them are their offspring. Genesis begins with God and doesn’t end until the church of the Old Testament has been firmly rooted, and four generations of patriarchs have lived their lives.” And for the last four months we have been zeroed in on Jacob and his son, Joseph.

This week I spoke with a man whose daughter has been battling cancer for seven years. You know the cycle–diagnosis, treatment, remission, reactivation, treatment, remission. After seven years it seems never-ending. Each new hope is dashed in a matter of months. He said to me, “It’s hard to know how to pray. I’ve got my will, and God’s got His will. I know my will, but I don’t know His will. I like my will. I want my will. And if His will doesn’t conform to my will, I don’t like His will. So, how is one to pray?” What would you have told him? What’s more, what do you think Jacob would have told him?

Donald Gray Barnhouse once wrote, “Beyond question the sovereignty of God is the most important and mysterious doctrine of the Bible. It is mysterious because it is the pure wisdom of the infinite God. To understand it even vaguely requires the new birth, for we cannot think infinite thoughts with finite minds. God plans all our experiences to wean us from trusting our own strength and intellect, and to cast us upon His strength and wisdom. To believe in the absolute sovereignty of God is to reject human wisdom and accept in simple faith all that the Father plans. There is no fatalism in this, for fatalism regards blind chance as the cause of all; but we trust our loving and wise Father.” Then, he attaches this prayer to his words, “Lord, take us out of ourselves and into You.”

At the end of Genesis 48–verses 17-22–we see Jacob and Joseph grappling with the will of God in a way that breeds some confusion between them. In fact, this is the only place in the biblical record where we read of Joseph’s displeasure with his father. The issue at hand is huge, the blessing of his two sons. When Joseph sees that his father is not doing it the way he wishes, he’s ticked. He even expresses his dissatisfaction. “Not this way, my father!” But his father refuses to honor his son’s will. Instead, he does what he determines to do. But when you read the rest of the story you discover that he was following a greater will than his own. He is doing what God had determined he’d do from the beginning of time.

Now normally that would appear to be bad news. Neither man is ultimately in charge. Joseph’s will says one thing and Jacob’s another. But then you remember whose will wins out. It’s the will of the One who knows the end from the beginning. It’s the will of the One who not only determines what will happen, but every time it’s the absolute best thing that could happen. It may take us a while to see the truth of the goodness, but one thing’s for certain, it always is!

We are going to dig into all of this Sunday in a message entitled, “The Blessings of Israel.” The text is Genesis 48:8-22. In preparation for Sunday, you may wish to consider the following:

1. What is the meaning of Joseph’s name?

2. Before this incident, Jacob (Israel) had 12 sons. How many does he have after it?

3. In what way are Ephraim and Manasseh like you?

4. What qualifies them to stand before their grandfather to be blessed?

5. How does Israel confirm the truth of what he says in verse 5?

6. What does Israel’s placement of his hands on the head of these boys mean?

7. What’s the meaning of Israel’s pronouncement in verse 21?

8. What is the territory to which Israel refers as an inheritance of Joseph in verse 22?

9. Why is it significant?

10. How does I Corinthians 1:26-31 elaborate on all of this?

See you Sunday!

"Like Father, Like Son" - Doug Rehberg

I have a friend who’s a great golfer. He played on his university golf team, after being taught the game by his father at an early age.

Occasionally, as he’s playing in a scramble event like the Holly Alm Camp Scholarship Fund, he will turn to one of his partners who is readying to hit a shot and say, “Don’t be afraid to be great.”

Someone has said, “It’s never too late to do something amazing.” At age 77 John Glenn was the oldest astronaut ever to be sent into space. At 82 William Ivy Baldwin was the oldest tightrope walker in history to walk across South Boulder Canyon in Colorado, on a 320-foot wire. At 89 Arthur Rubinstein performed at Carnegie Hall, in one of his greatest recitals ever. At 92 Paul Spangler finished his 14^th marathon. At 93 P.G. Wodehouse finished his 97^th novel, was knighted, and died. At 99 Teiichi Igarashi climbed Mt. Fuji. And at age 100 Frank Shearer became the oldest water-skier in the world. None of them were too afraid to be great, regardless of their age.

In Genesis 47 Joseph presents his father to Pharaoh as he and his brothers have entered the land of Egypt. There, in front of the greatest Pharaoh in the 3,000-year history of Egyptian Pharaohs, Joseph’s father is asked only one question: “How old are you?” Now, there are several reasons for the question, but chief among them is his advanced age. The average age of Egyptians at the time was a fraction of Jacob’s age. Remarkably, this Pharaoh, Ramses II, will be the longest ruling Pharaoh in Egyptian history and will die at the astonishing age of 90. But Jacob’s already 130-years-old.

So Pharaoh asks, “How old are you?” And Jacob commences whining. As we noted last Sunday, his focus is singularly on himself. He talks as if he’s going to die any minute; and yet, he will live another 17 years.

It’s during these 17 years that some serious changes occur in his perspective. What he says about his life in chapter 48 is in absolute variance to what he says in chapter 47. We are going to dig into all of this on Sunday in a message entitled, “Like Father, Like Son.” The text for the message is Genesis 48:1-16.

In preparation for Sunday you may wish to consider the following:

1. Read Hebrews 11 and note what the writer says about Jacob.

2. What does the writer of Hebrews identify as Jacob’s greatest achievement?

3. What does Israel mean in verse 5 when he says that Joseph’s sons are his?

4. Why does the Bible refer to him as Israel and not Jacob?

5. What’s Joseph’s name mean?

6. How does this passage show us the connections of his name?

7. How does Israel reinterpret his life in verses 15-16?

8. How does he reinterpret the “evil” that has befallen him?

9. What are the elements of his worship of God?

10. How do these verses relate to your life?

See you Sunday!

"It's Not Over Till It's Over" - Doug Rehberg

Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra was born on May 12, 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri. He died at age 90, September 22, 2015 in West Caldwell, New Jersey.

Yogi was a Hall of Fame baseball catcher, manager and coach. He played 19 seasons, all but the last one, with the New York Yankees. As famous as he was on the field, Yogi is best remembered for the things he said. “Baseball is 90% mental,” he said, “the other half is physical.” “When you come to a fork in the road,” he said, “take it.” Or how about this one, “You can observe a lot by just watching.”

But among all the Yogi-isms there’s one that is used more often, and by a wider set of people. It goes like this, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” And, it’s hard to argue with that!

It was 1973 and the National League pennant race was in full swing. His team was a long way behind when he first said it. They eventually did rally to win the division title. There’s something elegantly simple about those six words.

It tells people to wait and not make a snap judgment because a struggle or prospective defeat might turn around. Linguistically it’s a tautology that tells you nothing about the word when taken literally. What it does is remind you that there’s hope. It’s a Dunkirk spirit. In its various spellings, you can find Berra’s phrase well over half a million times on Google. At the top of the rankings is the Lenny Kravitz song that uses it as a title. The song insists that a certain love affair still has a spark in it.

It pops up in a bewildering array of places, from a scientific paper on Darwinian theory, to the 2006 comeback of Rocky Balboa. It’s been said by White House officials, the mayor of New York City, countless sportsmen and sportswomen. And we use it this week as the title to a message on the end of Genesis 47.

Here Jacob is standing before Pharaoh when Pharaoh asks him, “How many are the days of the years of your life?” Jacob’s answer is a withering, wearying 2 sentences. The fact that the writer records what he says and attributes it to Jacob is proof positive that his old human nature is speaking. He sounds as though he’s going to die. The truth is that he has another 17 years to live. And it’s in those 17 years that he performs one of his greatest works for the Kingdom of God.

We are going to look at all of this on Sunday as we dig into Genesis 47:7-12, 23-31. We will analyze the PERSPECTIVE of Jacob, the PRINCIPLE of Joseph, and the PROMISE of God. And through it all we will see, with clarity, the heart of God.

In preparation for Sunday, you may wish to consider the following:

1. Someone has said, “When God measures a person He doesn’t put a tape around the head, He puts it around the heart.” Do you agree?

2. What does God mean in I Samuel 16:7?

3. How does Joseph demonstrate this?

4. What does Jacob mean when he says the years of his life have been “few and evil”?

5. Do you think he’s whining about his age?

6. How old is he when he dies? How about Pharaoh?

7. What’s his reason for saying this to Pharaoh?

8. Why does Joseph institute this “tax” in verses 23 & 24?

9. How does this reflect the character of God?

10. Why does Joseph’s father ask him to put his hand under his thigh?

See you Sunday!